Update: Woman hurt by hit-run driver at 15th/Roxbury

(WSB photo by Tracy Record)
6:14 PM: Westbound Roxbury is closed between 15th and 16th SW (map) after a hit-run crash that sent a woman to the hospital. Police told us at the scene that she was in the crosswalk when hit by what witnesses describe as a blue SUV. The road closure will last a while, since the Traffic Collision Investigation Squad has been called in. We don’t yet know the victim’s condition or age; the initial callout was on the 911 log as a simple medic response, but readers (thank you) alerted us to a major police presence and crime tape across the road, so we went over to find out what had happened. If you have any information about this crash, please call 911.

(WSB photo by Patrick Sand)
8:15 PM: That section of road was still closed when we went back over about 15 minutes ago; TCIS is on scene doing its work. At this point we might not be able to get any more information until tomorrow; we’ll add an update when the road reopens tonight.

9:22 PM: Police have just announced (as monitored via scanner) that the road is open again.

MONDAY 10:58 AM UPDATE: We’re following up today with SPD and SFD. We’ve heard back from the latter, with spokesperson Kyle Moore telling us the woman is 35 years old and was in stable condition when taken to the hospital, where she was to be checked for possible serious internal injuries. (That’s all the information we will get about her without knowing her name, so if anyone reading this knows how she is doing, please consider either commenting, or e-mailing us at editor@westseattleblog.com – thank you.)

13 Replies to "Update: Woman hurt by hit-run driver at 15th/Roxbury"

  • alki resident November 30, 2014 (8:37 pm)

    Prayers to the victim. How horrible. I hope she makes it.

  • Vincent Dakotah Langley November 30, 2014 (11:35 pm)

    Somebody PLEASE correct me if I am wrong here, however, for all of my life, I have totally failed to see WHY many “people?” immediately leave the scene of an accident like this and only run from it??? It is nothing-short-of ABSOLUTELY-BIZARRE, to me, anyway — so much so that, for most-all of my life (I am now very close to being 63 years old), I have not owned or driven any motor vehicles (automobiles and so-forth, that run the public roads), just because of how dangerous it is out there, in the first place, and, also because of all of the FOOLS out there on the public roads — who, when they are in an accident, they only immediately leave the scene of that accident and “run for it”, so to speak — NOT CARING AT ALL whether or not they just either hurt or maybe even killed somebody, in that accident! I ALWAYS THOUGHT, anyway, when you are in an MVA (motor vehicle accident), the first, foremost and only thing that you are supposed to do, then, is stop and render all of the aid that you can, yourself, to any and all injured people in that accident, openly and freely sharing your automobile insurance information with the other person or people that were also involved in the accident — and, STAY RIGHT THERE, at the scene of the accident, AT LEAST UNTIL first responder help arrives — namely, the police department and/or the fire department. …WHAT are some “people?” thinking these days, in this world, anyway, when they only immediately run from the scene of an MVA, when they were just involved in it??? C’mon, “people?” who actually do this (run, that is to say, from the scene of an accident that you were just involved in), do you not have a heart at all, for other people around you in life??? Do you REALLY only think about just yourself or yourselves and NEVER anybody else in this life and THEIR well-being and safety??? I TRULY hope and pray that this lady that was the victim in this hit-and-run accident is going to “make it” — and, as well, that she WILL — at least, eventually — (the sooner, the better, of course), somehow, be OK, following and after this accident! …I also hope and pray, too, that the person or persons who did this hit-and-run WILL BE caught for it and CAUGHT REAL SOON!!! This is REALLY VERY SAD NEWS, right at the holidays and right at the beginning of the BEAUTIFUL Season of Advent!!! EVERYBODY, if you only will, PLEASE pray for this good lady!!! That is just a simple request of you reading this, from me, anyway. THANK YOU ALL and God bless you all, at the holiday season of the year — and also ALWAYS, year-round!!!

  • Mike Flora December 1, 2014 (5:56 am)

    Vincent–My wife and son were recently involved in a hit and run accident and the suspected reason(s) for the person not sticking around were later confirmed to be true. He was intoxicated and had no insurance. I would suspect that one or both of those circumstances could be the reason why this happens so frequently.

  • heather December 1, 2014 (10:29 am)

    That corner has camera’s. The gas station installed them after all the shootings there. To many people have lost there lives to violence at that inter section. Walgreens and Bartell Drugs should also have cameras. I pray for this woman and her family and hope the person responsible is caught… Soon

  • AJ December 1, 2014 (1:22 pm)

    All these hit and runs make me sick, too. It just boggles my mind how often this seems to be happening over the past year or two. In addition to the possibilities Mike provided, intoxication and lack of insurance, I’ll add: driving a stolen vehicle, vehicle contains stolen or illegal items, someone in the car has outstanding warrants, and teenager afraid to get in trouble with his/her parents.

  • Tom December 1, 2014 (2:02 pm)

    Vincent, the motivation to flee is fear. And it is strong. The penalties for hitting a pedestrian, beyond just the legal ramifications, can be severe. I once hit a pedestrian (Luckily, she was not seriously hurt). It was in an intersection that was unlit and she was wearing all dark colors. The police that showed up even agreed that it was not really my fault per say, but that the situation was just a poor one. But I still got a pretty expensive moving violation ticket and my car insurance rates went up significantly. Luckily, I could afford this, but for someone who is already strained financially, the impact of this could be a financial death sentence for them. If you require your car to get to your job so you can afford to put food on the table and keep a roof over your family’s head, risking all that at the expense of making sure a stranger you just injured is going to be ok is not such a clear cut call in the heat of the moment. Under better circumstances, yes they might take into account the needs of others, but in the fear of the moment, all they can worry about is the fall out that will happen in the aftermath to themselves and their families. It is a sad state of our society, but we have to many families on the brink of financial collapse that I am not in anyway surprised that we have people making these sorts of decisions.

  • drahcir61 December 1, 2014 (5:29 pm)

    Why is anyone surprised by this?

    You live in West Seattle, spend 10 minutes observing moving traffic on any relatively busy street around here & you’ll know why this happens.

    The majority of people just don’t care. Very few know the rules of the road & those that do could care less. The speed limit (& traffic rules) apply to OTHER people.

    Like the middle-aged woman driving a van 2 weeks ago who honked & then gave me the finger because my dog & I took too long in the crosswalk at 16th Ave SW & SW Myrtle.

    After 3 knee surgeries she doesn’t walk well, I’m sorry, it’s still a crosswalk. We do our best to “pick our spots” (so we don’t get killed) but really, how long did I delay you, 20 seconds? 40 seconds??? Wow how selfish of me!

    As I said, most people just don’t care.

  • Don December 1, 2014 (6:33 pm)

    Unfortunately, this has happened to me several times and every single time I was in a clearly marked crosswalk. Each time the vehicle involved drove through a stoplight or stop sign without even slowing down with one actually speeding up to hit me. Most did not stop and none every asked if I was okay or offered to help. The last one occurred in a school zone and she was very angry and left stating I was making her late. Every time you cross a street in Seattle you have to assume that every single driver could care less if they hit you.

  • Safety man December 2, 2014 (6:19 am)

    When you are walking in a cross walk, on the side walk, riding a bike or driving it is best to never trust other drivers…
    If you always are on the look out for these idiots who think getting somewhere 10 seconds faster even if it kills you, you will be a little but safer out there… Good luck all…

  • M December 2, 2014 (3:35 pm)

    Holy cow, some of the comments here make it sound like we live in some dystopian Mad Max future demolition derby from hell world, filled with stupid and crazy people who simply don’t care if they harm or kill you with their cars, and actual real homicidal maniacs who will harm or kill you just for the fun of it.

    I drive from Ballard to Arbor Heights almost every weekday morning and take my teenager son to school (public) on Capital Hill. It takes a little over two hours, but we get to drive through some of the most interesting and diverse neighborhoods in the city. We go from near Lincoln Park, up Marine View Drive, to Roxbury, through White Center, past South Park and the industrial area, though Georgetown, Downtown, and through Capital Hill, where I drop him off, near Group Health. Then I drive back through North Capital Hill, the ritzy part, through the several mile long Interlake Forest road, across the University Bridge, along North Lake Union, through Wallingford and Fremont, back to Ballard. It’s a great drive.

    And even though traffic is often, like this morning (ice), I can honestly say that I rarely, if ever, see the indifferent and/or scary drivers some of you commenters are talking about. There are some rude drivers, and bad drivers, the occasional drunk driver, a few really old drivers who should hang up the keys, but by and large, and across all of those neighborhoods, my experience is that most commuters are pretty much like everyone else who lives here, and generally follow the rules and try to be polite to and look out for each other.
    .
    There was a study recently completed that looked to see if there were any differences in the brains of self-identified conservatives and self-identified liberals. They gave each subject a series of random photos to look through that ranged from beautiful shots of people, places and things, to disasters, car wrecks and other unpleasant stuff. And then hooked them up to a brain scanner.
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    What they found was that liberals were squeamish about the bad stuff and immediately clicked to the next nice photo, which stimulated some pleasure center in their brains. On the other hand, the conservatives spent an overall average of five times longer looking at the scary photos, which sent the synapses in the fear area of the brian flying around like Whirling Dervishes, which is never fun.
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    So I’d be sincerely interested to know if the people who are apoplectic about killer drivers are also self-identified conservatives, like the study might imply. And if you are one, and are tired of the shame and fear, maybe just stop looking the the scary photos for a while, and start stimulation those pleasure centers.

  • Laura December 2, 2014 (8:15 pm)

    How about the Readers Digest condensed version. My prayers are for the victim and a complete recovery. As for the driver just do the right thing and take responsibility. We came upon this accident after it happened. So sad but even more annoying are drivers that lose the ability to drive and get out of the way because they cannot stop gawking at a accident scene causing a back-up and possibly causing another incident. Really???

  • Barb December 3, 2014 (6:22 am)

    I’ve been a pedestrian knocked down in a crosswalk, AND a driver who narrowly avoided hitting someone who just stepped off the curb without looking; both scary positions.

    People, get off your phones and PAY ATTENTION. Also, in almost all situations, most of us need to slow down! Make it a habit not to run late so that you can be a more relaxed driver. The speeds that kill seem to feed on themselves, AND spread to other drivers.
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  • Common Sense December 6, 2014 (7:41 am)

    I always make sure to make eye contact with the driver even if I have the right of way its reassuring to proceed once u know u have been acknowledged.Plus u can get a sense of where there head is and if they seem sane enough to walk in front of their vehicle.Alls it takes is one quick glance and meeting eye to eye.If u cant get them to make eye contact then wave em thru. 9/10 times a returned wave from driver clears you as acknowledged.

Sorry, comment time is over.